Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Without the True Teacher, you simply can't see the One. But when the Guru is kind, He shows the One to you directly. And then you realize something amazing: the One is everywhere, in everything, being everything — all by Himself — resting in a deep, effortless calm.
This stanza is the quiet peak of the composition. The first two lines say you cannot see the One on your own — the Guru has to show you, by grace (kirpa). But the third line is the revelation itself, and it stammers with one word: aapay aap aap — "Himself, Himself, Himself." Three times. When the seeing finally happens, what you see is that there was never anything but the One.
This is Ik Onkar stated as direct experience. Not "God made the world and lives somewhere far off," but: the One is "permeating and pervading" everything — mil rahi-aa, mingled into all of it. You and the world and the seeing and the seer are all the same single One. There is no second thing. That's why the next chapter of the song (Pauri6) will talk about burning away dooja bhaav, the feeling of a "second" — because once you truly see, the second was never there.
And how does this vast realization feel? Not like a thunderclap, but sehjay sahj — effortless, easy, natural peace. The biggest truth in existence arrives as the quietest calm. The roaring ego made everything feel like struggle and separation; when it dries up (as in the last stanza), what's left is the One simply being itself, peacefully, everywhere — including as you.
What would change about how you treat people and things if you really believed the same One was inside all of them?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI